It is known to use leg power to drive a machine such as a bicycle. However in the conventional arrangement, power is provided virtually by the legs alone, and the rest of the muscular energy which the body has available is unused.
As a result, the machine is not driven as hard as might be the case if all the muscular energy of the user were harnessed. Furthermore, one of the attractions of bicycling is that it provides exercise to the body. On a conventional bicycle, this exercise is generally limited to the legs.
It is known from British Patent Specification No. 1 469 363 to provide a single operating member which can be acted upon both by the arms and the legs. The problem with this however is that both arms and legs are forced to move at the same speed and in the same rhythm, and this is not comfortable for the user and is not efficient in applying muscle power from different muscular sources.